Meanwhile, just when we needed to consolidate our remaining strengths, to re-energise parish ministry, and to reinvigorate the ordained ministry with funding, affirmation, and a theological rationale, the opposite course of action has been pursued: centralised control of policy and resources, disparagement of the parochial form of Anglican life, and devaluing of the ordained vocation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Much has already been demolished, especially at the local level; much more has been weakened and made more difficult. It is hard going, these days, in parishes for clergy, together with churchwardens and other hard-working lay people. There are social and cultural reasons for the uphill nature of the task in the present era, but lack of support \u2014 in able clergy, in financial resources, in moral affirmation, in practical wisdom \u2014 is another. The Church of England on the ground is an ailing and failing Church. How has all this come about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A minority of activists (lay and ordained General Synod members, some bishops and an Archbishop, and the Archbishops\u2019 Council<\/a> collectively) have contrived and conspired, over a period of years, to change the nature of the Church, to replace it with a different and alien ecclesial model. That replacement model is essentially managerial rather than relational, bureaucratic instead of organic, centralised in place of localised \u2014 all varnished over with the vacuous rhetoric of \u201cleadership\u201d (seldom has such a necessary concept been so misappropriated and abused). And all accompanied by complacent theological illiteracy and ignorance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Centralisation of resources and of decision-making, whether at the national or diocesan level, subverts the institution as a whole. It sucks the life and energy out of the very places in which life and energy are primarily generated: the parish and (potentially) the diocese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read it all<\/a>.<\/p> "We are now living in an upside-down, topsy-turvy, Church. Turning things the right way up again needs us to begin with the ethical imperative. What needs to affirmed, above all, is the priority of the ethical for thinking and acting" #ChurchofEngland<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/oYoYqMdtQC<\/a><\/p>— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 6, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote>